Doctor Who: Born Again
by Brad Heisler
Summary: The Twelfth Doctor meets the end of his lives with no regenerations remaining and is left to contemplate his existence and the effects he has had on the universe.
1. The End of the Doctor

The Doctor staggered towards the ominous police box, standing cold and alone in the midst of an empty field. Nearing his ship, he practically fell upon the blue wooden doors, scrambling through his pockets, searching for the Yale key that would allow him to return to the sanctity of the TARDIS. The key was nowhere to be found.

Staring down at his bloody, mangled fingers, the Doctor tried in vain to snap the doors to the TARDIS open. A gooey, wet plop sound of blood bubbles escaped his fingertips, but the ship's entrance remained shut. Resigning to his fate outside of the TARDIS, the Doctor collapsed to the ground, wheezing and bleeding.

He touched his hand to his chest, feeling the holes on each side of his body, precisely where his hearts lie. Both of them were punctured straight through, in one end and out the other. Even if he had another remaining regeneration, he wouldn't be able to use it. Injuries like this couldn't be helped, not by any means.

"Looks like this is it, isn't it old friend?" the Doctor broken-heartedly asked the TARDIS. "We always knew it would end this way though, all alone."

The Doctor sighed, "We always tried hiding it, always tried to save ourselves. But it's always the same every time. Alone."

Blood spilled from the Doctor's mouth as he spoke to his beloved TARDIS. "Still, we lived the good lives, didn't we? Twelve long lifetimes, used up all thirteen regenerations and we did good with them, saved a lot of people I think." The Doctor coughed and blood splattered onto his suit.

"Did we do good? Was it right? Maybe we should have been alone the entire time. Maybe we shouldn't have taken on companions. We did right by that though, didn't we? Saved lives I think we did."

Eyelids slipping, the Doctor winked in and out of consciousness. It was his time. Listening closely, he heard the universe sing a song of mourning. Words of the Doctor spread across all of space-time. Worlds not even the Doctor would have imagined told legends of the man in the blue box. Every civilization had their stories of the great Time Lord to tell. And the Doctor slipped away, feeling the entirety of the universe sing him to eternal sleep.

"It's a beautiful thing, life is," the Doctor remarked and, closing his eyes, welcomed the nothingness that carried him away.


	2. New Life

Even though no human, time lord or alien was around at his time of passing, the Doctor did not die alone. By his side at the very end was his oldest and greatest friend, the TARDIS. While his companions came and went, his spaceship had never let him down. Mind you, it was fickle and temperamental more times than it wasn't, but a bond of steel had formed between the two of them. The Doctor's tawdry quirks meshed perfectly with the TARDIS's, from his strange wardrobe and ridiculous hair to its broken chameleon circuit and jammed brakes.

The TARDIS had never given up on the Doctor. While the rest of the world would have forgotten the man when he died, replacing him instead with stories of an impossible hero, the TARDIS remembered, and the TARDIS fought back. Acting on its own free will, the TARDIS turned its knobs and gears, pressed its buttons and levers and battled against time and fate for the sake of the Doctor.

And then, something happened. Across all of creation, every planet, every solar system, every galaxy and universe, a great blue light flashed. For a brief second, all of time and space folded over itself, and the time vortex enveloped everything. As quick as it had expanded, the light of time retracted, focusing its entire energy on one point, wrapping itself around the Doctor.

The vortex retraced the Doctor through his hundreds of years, reliving and remembering his existence. And then, as all of his lives converged into one singular point in time, the Doctor opened his eyes and looked around. Confused, he patted down himself, as if to assure he was actually alive. Two legs, two arms, ten fingers, hopefully ten toes, everything was intact. Feeling safe with his self-assessment, the Doctor looked up at the TARDIS and smiled.

"Ohh… Oh! Brilliant!"


End file.
